Gone
by Bye11
Summary: "Friendship's enemy is betrayal" (Toba Beta). Takes place immediately after 5x02. Diane's POV on the choice she made.


**A/N: This is dedicated to Mary and it was a way for me to get rid of some negative feelings that kept running in my head after 502. Let's hope that the Kings will manage to fix what they have UNNECESSARILY broken. **

"And Diane, great interview!"

"No problem."

How come discord always made for great interviews? What was it about journalists and their readers that made them have this necessity to always see people turn on one another? Was it to congratulate themselves on there being someone ahead in their common race to the bottom of the morality scale?

And yet the sense of nausea that was taking hold of her had little to do with Mandy Post or with the Chicago Law readers for that matter. It had everything to do with what she had just done.

Her secretary appeared in her field of vision.

"Miss Lockhart?"

"Please, Sarah, I'd like a moment alone."

"Of course, it's just...that was Mr. Gold on the phone. He wanted me to rely the message that everything was fine and that you didn't have to give the interview again."

Before she even truly realized what was going on, she was on her feet and walking as fast as she could towards the exit. Relief was making her ecstatic. For once, the usually-unbearable slowness of the elevator would work in her favor. It could all be salvaged. She would intercept Mandy, kill the story, go home, run herself a bath and put this horrid affair behind her.

She arrived to their lobby just in time to see the doors closing on the elevator carrying Mandy Post down. She furiously pushed the call button. In vain. By the time the other elevator arrived she would be long gone. She almost ran back to her office.

"Sarah! You have Ms. Post's number! Call her now!"

"Sure."

Her secretary looked for the number and in a few seconds she was pressing the right numeric keys. She gave her a tight smile while she took the phone in her hand.

The rhythmic, beeping sound on the other end of the line was infuriating and yet calming. Merely a phone call. That's all it took to repair a 10-year-relationship nobody knew had been broken. When the call went to voicemail, she hit the repeat number on the phone and tried again.

One, two, three, four, five...

"You've reached Mandy Post. Leave your tip after the beep."

Ugh. Please.

She was almost tempted to leave a message but then she remembered about Sarah standing way too close.

"Would you write the number down for me?"

"Certainly, Miss Lockhart."

The black digits jumped starkly from the bright colored post-it she stuck to the fingers.

"Hold any calls until my say-so, will you?"

"Very well, Miss Lockhart."

She closed her door behind her and reached the desk. Deep breath. It was all a question of getting in contact with the journalist. Easy.

After an hour or so, Mandy Post still hadn't called her back, even after leaving a voicemail, and she decided that Eli owed her one after the stint he had just pulled.

"Diane, I'm glad you got back to me. So, as I was telling your secretary, Peter..."

"I gave the interview."

"What?"

"When you called, Mandy Post had just gotten out of my office. I've been trying to call her ever since but she won't answer her phone nor call me back."

"Oh..."

"Oh what, Eli?"

"Well, after a controversial interview, sources might always have second thoughts and journalists... let's say they try to prevent losing the story."

"So you're saying that she won't return my call and just go ahead, whether I want it or not?"

"She's got you on record, doesn't she?"

"Eli!"

"Sorry, Diane, I know the timing is unfortunate but maybe it's better this way. The Chief Justice will be much more happier to welcome you into their ranks."

"You called to say that the interview wasn't necessary, correct?"

"Yes but..."

"But nothing. I want that interview destroyed."

"I can't do it."

"Why not? You deal with journalists all the time."

"Diane, I'm the Chief of Staff of the Governor-Elect. Do you know how many favors I'll need from journalists in the next four years?"

"So, what's one more?"

"I can't waste one on this. I'm sorry."

"No, no, no. It can't happen."

"Look, I'm sure you haven't said anything that wasn't already public. He'll understand."

"Would you like me to do an interview on Chicago Law about how I abhor hypocrisy in politicians? I could quote the cases Peter brought..."

"What? Are you crazy? No."

"Why? I wouldn't be saying anything that isn't already public. Wouldn't Peter understand?"

"Diane..."

She knew that tone well. It was lodged somewhere in the fine line between unbelieving and threatening.

"I wouldn't do it, Eli. But you can't believe that Will won't mind. I understand that you and Peter don't care. I'm saying it's important to me that Will doesn't read that interview."

"Diane, believe me, I would if I could."

"But you won't."

"I won't."

"Goodbye, Eli."

"It'll be okay, Diane, you'll see."

She pushed the red button on the phone and left it on the desk. Well, she wasn't worse off than an hour ago, was she? Except that she had clung to that thread of hope and now her delusion that she could have it all had crumbled upon her once more. Why did it have to be so incredibly hard?

A video of Peter sucking a prostitute's toes could surface and he still could get to the Governor's mansion, happy family still intact and in tow. Eli could be wiretapped and accused of swapping favors for campaign contributions and he was still qualified enough to be the Chief of Staff.

Power took care of its own. People forgave or didn't care enough.

But with her, a woman that had kept her head in the game and had never skirted the law or been part of any scandal, well, nothing was ever enough, was it? They had to question her fiancé, her partner, her friend.

It was sexist. It was cruel and unusual punishment. It was unfair to her. And him.

Her eyes flickered to Will's office. He was still hard at work, as always. Their firm had been their life, they had devoted to it affection, care, and that deep love that one probably wasn't supposed to have for inanimate entities. Case after case, fight after fight, problem after problem, year after year. Even if just to be at odds with her, Will had always been there, the only human constant in her life.

She would never have predicted it at the beginning, when she had observed him get his place into the office. Full of swagger and cockiness, with an oversized ego to peg down and the utter belief that the world existed to fall at Will Gardner's feet. She had planned to crush him and show him how a Chicago defense really looked like, even with regard to office politics. Stern would see how completely useless the third partner was and all would be well in her world.

She couldn't pinpoint the moment in which she had changed her mind. Will had snuck up on her. The popular kid with his weekly basketball games and a baseball ball as an anti-stress cared more for his clients than she would have ever guessed. He had a gifted legal mind and he was so fun to be around. Little by little she had warmed up to him until one day they had ganged up against Stern, complicit in the same side of the battle. That evening, with Stern pissed off and already gone, he had come to her office bearing a bottle of scotch.

"So, it seems that we both might have made a slight error of judgment."

"Of course not. It was the right decision."

"Today, you're right, of course it was. I was talking about before."

She had been puzzled by his meaning but had still proceeded to take out two glasses for their nightcap.

"I believed Stern would be my card to play to neutralize you and I believe you had the same thought."

He had gotten it right but then again, lawyers were always prepared to assume the worst.

"How come it never occurred to us that we could be allies?"

"You are a narcissistic jock."

He had smirked.

"And you a highbrow nitpicker."

She had had to give him points for originality. She had expected the classical "cold-hearted bitch" or some variation on the theme.

"Which makes us perfect to attract all kinds of clients. Plus, we're both brilliant, we work well together, we both care for the future of the firm and, unlike Stern, we both have something to prove."

She had to admit she liked the sound of what he was saying. And maybe the feeling she had been mulling all day that something with Stern wasn't like before was nothing more than the same idea Will was now voicing.

"So you're proposing what?"

"A truce to our covert war. Let's start working with each other, Diane. I think we could both benefit from it."

"And why should I trust you? You could very well use this truce to undermine me with Stern."

"So could you."

"So we should just trust each other."

"I think we already trust each other."

"Really!"

"Yep, I'm here talking to Stern's protégé about possibly making an united front against him. I wouldn't do that with anyone."

"I feel so special."

He had laughed then. The kind of carefree and infecting laugh she had never heard from him before. She had found herself joining in unconsciously, her guard dropped and nodding to his earlier statement.

"You're right. For some reason, I don't distrust you as I did before."

"That's because among our many differences, we are the same Diane. We love this firm more than anything else. We are practically co-parents."

"Co-parents?"

"Yes, Stern is the drunk grandpa that comes from time to time with exotic gifts, but we are the ones that will make this firm great."

"Let's do it then, Will."

"Gang up against the grandpa?"

"Not bicker anymore. I'd say it's enough for now."

"Deal."

"Deal."

They had toasted to the buried hatchet and spent a couple of hours in each other's company. Just unwinding and talking freely about the day. Without the complication of confidentiality, without the hassle of someone not speaking legalese, without the pressure that came from having a boss in the room.

Like peers, partners, friends.

She sat paralyzed, not knowing what to do, not wanting to break the stalemate. She wanted to see Kurt, maybe even hide out in his cabin. She could leave and not have to deal with any of it. At least for a while. She could celebrate with her fiancé that the last obstacle to her nomination had been vanquished. She was going to be a Supreme Court Judge. She was going to change the life of millions of citizens in Illinois, she could actually help sculpt the law as she had dreamed for so long. Wasn't that something that deserved some kind of fanfare? Her hand hovered over the phone. He would even come to collect her if she asked.

Something stopped her. What would he think about what she'd just done? She had been his hero, and he had been the one who told her that she had patterned her life after the things she admired about her dad, that she shouldn't answer for sins she didn't even know about. What would she say that night?

"You were wrong. I'm a hypocrite, I'm just like my father. Given the right opportunity I sold Will out. Just like that."

The man had built a reputation on his integrity. What if he couldn't accept her anymore? What if this decision had cost her both her partners?

So she hesitated.

On the back of her mind, she knew what he would tell her. That she should own what she did, that she should go to Will and explain, talk.

She truly should. Cross the brief distance, sit uncomfortably in one of his chairs and reveal the truth. The blackmail, Eli, the first two interviews. All of it. She could have the chance to make him hear her reasons.

She truly should. Except that any word she tried to conjure somehow wasn't enough. All the arguments in her head felt like lawyer-talk. Full of eloquence, logic and even charm but lacking authenticity. What could she say?

"I'm sorry, Will. I was trapped. It was a lose-lose situation. If I hadn't given that interview, I would have lost the judgeship and that would have been just the start of it all. They would have written vicious lies about me. They always do about women in power. Mandy would have invented that I am too maternal, that I don't have the courage to make the right decisions. They could even have thrown in that I'm desperately in love with you and that's why I supported you. They wouldn't have understood, Will. Nobody can understand our partnership from the outside."

It wasn't remotely acceptable. Will would poke holes in that speech in seconds. He would ask why she hadn't come to him earlier, why she hadn't shared her problem with him. He was a fan of the solutions that were complete wins for them. He could have had come up with an idea so out of the box that it could actually work, just like in the death row case. Why hadn't she trusted him, didn't she believe that he genuinely wanted this for her? And he did. She had seen it. In the last 4 years they had gotten closer and closer. When she had been offered judgeship before, he had listened and nodded in all the right places but he had been giddy at the thought of being free to helm the realm on his own. When instead she had told him about Peter's offer, his smile had been incredulous but warm and the sudden incapacity of his at maintaining the eye-contact was the tell she had seen over and over again and had translated over the years. He was pained but he didn't want that pain to be a burden to anyone else.

It had felt like cheating at the time. Now it was a full-on betrayal.

She didn't have any of the answers to his imaginary questions. The plush red carpet she had aspired to all her life had been brutally pulled from under her feet by Eli and she had, in a brief second, realized that that would be it. She could become a Supreme and make a mark, make her life count, or she could be stuck forever handling David Lee's paranoia and courting clients. Suddenly it hadn't even been a choice. There was no refusing the Supreme Court. She had sacrificed so much, lost so much, spent so much time waiting for a moment like that. She would have been betraying herself if she hadn't made that call to the journalist.

So she had made the call. She had talked about Will as someone who hadn't learned to know him and she had gotten her life back on track.

She had betrayed him because it sounded better than betraying herself. At the end she had ended up betraying both. Indeed, she recognized very well the feeling of a pit in her stomach and the voice in her head was awfully familiar. Mr. Sullivan, her ethics Professor in law school during Graduation party:

"Will you promise me something, Ms. Lockhart?"

"Certainly, Mr. Sullivan."

"Those convictions of yours. Hold on to them, will you? The world of the law needs the hope that there can be Diane Lockharts even outside the padded walls of academia."

"You can be sure of it, Mr. Sullivan. I don't like disappointing others but most of all I don't like disappointing myself."

"A+ answer, Miss Lockhart, as always."

What would Mr. Sullivan say today?

Would he shake his head, discouraged scowl still perfectly in place? Or, worse, would he commend her for having the courage to speak out about her partner?

Because that was the greatest absurdity of it all. Some people would actually congratulate her for being professional and yet objective about who she was working with. All those people would blab to her and all the while not one of them would ask how his partner had taken it. Just as Peter and Eli hadn't asked. Ubi maior, minor cessat. Powerful people did not even spare a thought for something as inconsequential as feelings. The feelings of a scoundrel, who had been suspended and liked to play at the edge of the law were completely irrelevant. Will was irrelevant to the lot of them.

But Will hadn't been irrelevant to Eddie, he hadn't been irrelevant to the hundreds of clients that had come and gone through his door, he hadn't been irrelevant to the Governor of Illinois for that matter, considering how he, against her judgment, had helped his wife at her lowest point. Most of all, he hadn't been, he wasn't and he would never be irrelevant to her.

"Diane? You ok? You seem to be a little out of it."

The voice was that of the man in question, coming to the office with a document in his hand.

_"No, I'm not ok. I'm sorry, Will. I'm so sorry."_

Instead the words that actually made it out of her mouth were nothing more than generic reassurances.

"You up for a nightcap?"

"More like an afternoon cap. Something to celebrate? Maybe the Governor getting ready to announce the lucky nominee for the Supreme Court? There's always such a suspense on those proceedings. So, who do you think it will be?"

"Oh, shut up."

He grinned then and she found her lips curling up of their own accord.

_"I'm sorry Will."_

Once again she couldn't bring herself to say the words. He would ask why, he would get rightfully furious, and yell even more affronted than when he had confronted her about the new firm. The man that had entered her office as the best of friends would leave it as the most formidable of enemies. And she wasn't remotely ready for it. She needed one last time of Will & Diane being Will & Diane.

"Here!"

"It's true what they say about people leaving."

She rolled her eyes, because this would certainly be one of his antics. She still played along, as she always did.

"What do they say?"

"They're awfully liberal with their good alcohol."

She burst out laughing at the absurdity and at the Willness of that sentence while he was giving her his best fake-outraged look. She would miss how he could conjure up levity at a moment's notice.

_"I'm sorry Will."_

He took his glass from her and proposed a toast while their glasses rattled one against the other.

"To Neil Gross not firing me today!"

"Even from a distance I could tell he was hating you less today."

"I do that, don't I? Convince computer billionaires that I'm positively brilliant?"

"Positively brilliant, really?"

"Yes, I have an irresistible appeal. Sooner or later everyone has to succumb."

That was conceited and yet so true. Anyone except for useless politicians and judges.

_"I'm sorry Will."_

"I'm sorry to disturb you. Mr. Gardner, there's a call for you."

"Of course there is."

She answered to the secretary. Couldn't they have just a minute alone to just be?

"Well, duty calls. This is really good stuff, I'm sure this call will be entertaining."

She smiled again and while he moved towards his office she found herself speaking.

"Wait!"

"What?"

_"I'm sorry Will."_

"Don't let David raid my cabinet when I'm gone."

"You should take it all with you. Then you'll have to invite me to your new, cushy office. I have always wanted to contaminate the air of stillness they have there."

_"You won't want to come. I'm sorry Will."_

"I'd have to sneak you in. They won't let you in at the front door."

"My favorite way to get into self-important buildings."

"Go away!"

_"Don't go. I'm sorry Will."_

"Going, going... gone."

Gone. Gone from her office. Gone from her side. Gone from her life.

_"I'm sorry Will."_


End file.
